Air Force Academy doubles-down in defense of “ex-gay” character coach

The Air Force Academy contacted me about our story yesterday breaking the news that they had hired Dr. Mike Rosebush, a supposed-“ex-gay” with twenty years experience “curing homosexuals,” to oversee the “Character and Leadership” coaching program at the academy.

The Academy wanted me to know that Rosebush is not in charge of “counseling” cadets, and does not “counsel” or “evaluate” cadets. Rather, he’s “only” in charge of “coaching” them on developing good character and leadership skills. (Rosebush actually developed the entire character and leadership building coaching program the academy uses, called “MOSAIC Personal Coaching.”)

Unfortunately, that explanation falls short of addressing the underlying problem. A man who has devoted the last twenty years of his life to “curing” gay people is now in charge of a mandatory program, that he designed, to help Air Force Academy cadets develop “character” and “leadership.”

Air Force Academy Cadets form up while attempting to break the largest formation collegiate record with a 46-person formation (Credit: U.S. Air Force Photo/Tech. Sgt. Joseph Valente)

Rosebush’s religious right resume

Over the past nearly twenty years, Rosebush has worked as a vice president at Focus on the Family, as the director of the Professional Counselors’ Network at Exodus International, served as a clinical member of the National Association for Research & Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH), including publishing alongside NARTH’s head, Joseph Nicolosi, and has run his own “cure the gays” counseling program.

That is the entirety of Rosebush’s professional experience stretching back almost two decades before being hired by the Air Force Academy – he worked with gay-hating organizations and used “junk science” in an attempt to “cure” gays of their supposed problem.

A bit of background on Rosebush’s former employers:

Focus on the Family is one of the most rabidly anti-gay, and most powerful, religious right activist organizations in the nation. Here’s Focus on the Family’s publication CitizenLink quoting Anne Paulk, supposed “ex-gay” (whose “ex-gay” husband was caught in a skeezy gay bar a while back):

“[T]he person with same-sex attraction usually has some pretty specific wounds with their same-sex parent, their peers, their self-identity and their understanding of who the opposite gender is. They usually have some childhood wounding. There is a lot going on and a lot of care is needed.”

A booklet from Focus on the Family charges that “studies indicate that around 35 percent of pedophiles are homosexuals. . . . a child molester is 17 times more likely to be homosexual than heterosexual.”

Exodus International oversaw a large number of “pray away the gay” programs across the US, before Exodus shut down recently and apologized for trying to do something that it finally admitted doesn’t work.

Here are several quotes from Exodus that I took off the Family Research Council’s Web site a few years back. Speaking is Jane Boyer, a former board member of Exodus:

“[I]n areas that are most accepting of homosexuality, such as Hollywood and San Francisco and New York, there is the highest percentage of suicide, death from chemical dependency, drug addiction, alcoholism, and HIV amongst the gay community, and I am concerned about that, because I love the homosexual. Obviously, in those areas that they are receiving the greatest acceptance, there is the highest percentage of death and despair amongst the gay community.”

“[L]esbian love is a counterfeit, it’s a lie, and we are far too easily pleased with a counterfeit. And that is what the gay community — that is the deception, is that when they turn to homosexual behavior, when they turn to these gay relationships, it doesn’t fill. It gives the illusion of being satisfying. But it really doesn’t. It really doesn’t.”

“[W]hen two women come together in this kind of relationship, you are both broken people in a lot of pain, in need to be loved and accepted, a lack of identity, a lack of self-worth.”

NARTH is one of the most virulent anti-gay “cure” organizations in the country, set up years ago as a kind of pseudo-scientific organization to give a false patina of credibility to what is roundly consider “junk science.” Here are several quotes I collected from NARTH’s Web site a few years back:

“This is ultimately about the protection of America’s youth from such groups as NAMBLA and militant homosexuals who seek to lower the age of consensual sexual intercourse between homosexual men and young boys to the age of fourteen (as in Hawaii, 1993) or sixteen (as in England, 1994). They have told us, ‘We’re here. We’re Queer. And we are coming after your children.’ How much more do we need to know?”

“[The] homosexual movement. . . . is strikingly similar in the propaganda of both movements: communistic totalism and homosexual totalism…. such an atmosphere is uncomfortably reminiscent of George Orwell’s 1984.”

Then in recent years, Rosebush ran his own one-man “coaching” business called “Coaching Confidant,” devoted to “curing” gay people, and other “sex addicts,” by phone for $125 an hour.

Rosebush is also an author. Among other anti-gay tracts, he authored “Sanctifying Coaching: Sexual purity and peace for Christian men with same-sex attractions. Here’s a little of the blurb for the book on Amazon:

Dr. Rosebush’s Sanctification Coaching provides the groundbreaking methods that helped his clients achieve sexual purity, peace and heterosexual confidence. If you are a Christian tired of being distressed over your same-sex attractions, then Sanctification Coaching was written for you!

…

Dr. Rosebush is also a contributing author to The Handbook of Therapy for Unwanted Homosexual Tendencies: A Guide to Treatment. Dr. Rosebush has decades of success in counseling Christian men who struggle with same-sex attractions.

Before his nearly two decades working with the religious right on trying to cure gays, Rosebush was in the Air Force and, in addition to flying planes, taught behavior science and went on to get a PhD in counseling psychology.

Focus on the Family on the “lack of character in men dealing with homosexuality”

For nearly 20 years, Rosebush worked for organizations that didn’t think that gays should even be cadets, or serve in the military at all. Yet, now he’s in charge of a program – designed a program – to help Air Force Academy cadets build character and leadership abilities, when it’s doubtful that Focus on the Family, Exodus or NARTH felt that gay American service members had any character at all.

The issues I am going to deal with are a lack of character in men dealing with homosexuality and a spirit of control in women dealing with lesbianism. This article will deal with men.

In dealing with a lack of character in men overcoming homosexuality, I want to stress that this is not an issue with everyone who comes to us. In fact, occasionally, men come to us who struggle mightily with homosexuality but have obvious strength of character. I can almost guarantee that they are going to achieve victory.

On the other hand, a lack of character is so common to men from a homosexual background, and the development of character so central to the healing process, I would urge all of you to pay some heed to this article.

The Air Force Academy has a problem

It stretches all credulity to suggest that Rosebush’s professional anti-gay, junk-science experience of the last two decades was somehow ancillary to his being hired by the Air Force Academy, and that his experience in no way influences his work today.

Mike Rosebush’s last six jobs, stretching all the way from 1995 to present. (“Focus” means “Focus on the Family.”

Who gets hired not based on the last twenty years of their work experience?

Is that the way the Air Force Academy conducts its hiring nowadays, not based on what you’ve done professionally the last two decades – ignoring your last six jobs, mind you – in the exact same field, coaching, that you’re being hired for?

Hey, we don’t care what you did last year – tell us what you did in the 1980s.

You simply don’t hire a man to be chief surgeon, even if he got his medical degree from Harvard, if he spent the last twenty years practicing voodoo. Your most relevant experience when looking for a job is your most recent experience, not what you did when Ronald Reagan was president.

Just to recap: Mike Rosebush, the president of Coaching Confidant, a counseling service geared towards curing gays and other “sex addicts,” who for twenty years worked with gay-hating religious right organizations to “cure” gays of this supposed flaw in their character, is now hired by the Air Force Academy to design and oversee their “coaching” program, and help build the “character” of Air Force cadets, and we’re to believe that the scientifically-baseless coaching work Rosebush did the day before he joined the academy has nothing to do with the coaching work he did the day after.

It’s clear from the email the Air Force Academy sent me that they’d like us to believe that Mike Rosebush was a really qualified guy back before he went off the pseudo-science deep-end twenty years ago.

And that’s great.

Had the Air Force Academy hired Mike Rosebush back in 1994, before he joined with the worst of the worst anti-civil-rights activists in America in his nearly 20-year quest to “cure” an entire class of American citizens of their minority status, no one would have complained.

But it’s not 1994. It’s nearly 2014.

And Mike Rosebush, who was an Air Force Teacher 20+ years ago, is now Mike Rosebush, anti-gay quack.

Another “ex-gay” – in this case, an ex-“ex-gay” whose a lot more famous than Rosebush, weighed in last night on the controversy in a statement from the American Military Partner Association:

The American Military Partner Association (AMPA), the nation’s premier resource and support network for LGBT military spouses and their families, released the following statements today regarding the employment of Dr. Mike Rosebush by the U.S. Air Force Academy.

Dr. Rosebush has spent a lifetime devoted to advocating the pseudoscience that homosexuality is something that can and should be “cured.” Such a practice is uniformly dismissed as harmful and unscientific by organizations such as the American Psychological Association and other respected medical and social work organizations.”Hiring a man committed to such a destructive pseudoscience in a position devoted to developing character and leadership in cadets is simply unconscionable,” said Stephen Peters, president of the American Military Partner Association. “It is extremely disrespectful and offensive to not only the gay and lesbian cadets at the academy, but the thousands of gay and lesbian service members and their families proudly serving our nation.”

“As one of the original founders of Exodus, and a close follower of the ‘Ex-gay’ movement for over 30 years, I can personally attest to the great harm done by ‘reparative therapy’ and ‘ex-gay’ programs,” said Michael Bussee, one of the ex-gay reparative therapy survivors and most vocal critics. “They promote junk science, religious prejudice and shame, and have done immeasurable harm to countless LGBT individuals and their families. It is deeply disturbing that a leading U.S. military institution should have anything to do with these unscientific and destructive ‘therapies.'”

Josh Seefried, who until recently was the co-chair of OutServe/SLDN, and who himself went to the Air Force Academy, also weighed in this morning via a comment on his personal Facebook page, which pretty well sums up the problem the Air Force Academy now faces:

A week ago, I approached Dr Michael Rosebush regarding his past exgay therapy, I was shocked and appalled he actually turned me towards resources to evaluate the practice. I’m disappointed someone like this is evaluating programs at the Air Force Academy. Dr Rosebush chose to be a public figure of the exgay/ antigay movement. With his previous public positions, his very presence creates an atmosphere that’s hostile for the workplace.

And hostile for our cadets as well.

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John AravosisFollow me on Twitter: @aravosis | @americablog | @americabloggay | Facebook | Instagram | Google+ | LinkedIn. John Aravosis is the Executive Editor of AMERICAblog, which he founded in 2004. He has a joint law degree (JD) and masters in Foreign Service from Georgetown; and has worked in the US Senate, World Bank, Children's Defense Fund, the United Nations Development Programme, and as a stringer for the Economist. He is a frequent TV pundit, having appeared on the O'Reilly Factor, Hardball, World News Tonight, Nightline, AM Joy & Reliable Sources, among others. John lives in Washington, DC. John's article archive.

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So they gay advocate says gays are robots who have no control over themselves and the “bigot” says gays are people first and as such have the ability to make choices for themselves. Correct ?

JT Chas

Sounds like Dr. Rosebush will add to the diversity of USAFA and do a great job.

CommonSense5201

Kettle, meet pot

CommonSense5201

” … a great nation deserves equality … ”

Certainly a statement that all should be able to agree with … the difference being that while I actually embrace it to its fullest meaning, you seem to apply it only selectively

Guest

Troll Alert: FlyButanol is the answer to this question

docsterx

I’m not guessing at the Academy’s “honesty.” It’s been shown at least twice to have lied and attempted a cover up. Honestly, you just don’t seem to get it. But that’s OK, I’m sure “Santa”will be good to you. You just enjoy that holly-flavored, butanol-laced Air Force KoolAid. And don’t get too overworked on Christmas Eve when you help NORAD track Santa like a good little Elf.

How can you be more marginalized? You’ve already shown yourself to be a member of the lunatic fringe. Grab your SIOP, or Bible, and thump it some more.

As to your remarks, as Santa says, “Ho, Ho, Ho!” Why don’t you debate with yourself now? Maybe you’ll occasionally win one of those. That would be quite the accomplishment for you – coming out as a winner, rather than a whiner.

Which means that in spite of the APA having problems with RT as far back as 1999, in spite of the fact Rosebush had a practice reliant on RT, he kept doing it. This from a man who graduated from a university that had a APA-certified program, which he was all too happy to include in his bio. Psychological and psychiatric professionals, like any medical professional, take part in continuing education. You don’t think he knew about this as far back as 1999? He had to have been wilfully ignorant or otherwise negligent to not know of the APA’s (and those of like organizations) stance on RT.

You seemed to suggest that I said something about him being prosecuted under California’s or New Jersey’s laws. No. That’s not the point of mentioning that RT is illegal in those states. I mention it because the fact that two states (and more pending) have made it illegal for use on minor children demonstrates the probability of its ability to harm people. If you had bothered to read the Wikipedia link on RT, you’d know that it has a long and nasty history. The things that they used to do to people, and still do to people to “cure” a person of being gay were downright cruel and criminal. Then there’s the psychological torture (and that is what it really is, talk to people who’ve been through it). Do you really want to defend a man who used this kind of therapy on people?

Now about the people who are of age and willingly subject themselves to it. They are only prolonging the process of coming to terms with how they were born and who they are. Being gay is not a set of behaviors that is programmable, it is not outside of the human norm. Just because one thinks it to be icky and feels they have biblical justification for it to be wrong does not make it any less outside of the human norm. Even if that person thinks that they want to go through RT.

From there, you go into a rant on Jerry Brown and California, which is not pertinent to the discussion. The wisdom of all of your state’s policies is not the subject at hand. Another state (coincidentally, led by a Republican governor) on the other end of the country also finds RT to be undesirable because of its lack of effectiveness and its harmfulness.Just because one may or may not have a problem with any particular state’s policy or law does not automatically invalidate any or all of those laws.

You seem to be running a little circularly here, and don’t want to post anything pertinent or of value to the discussion. Your entire position seems to be one of being an apologetic for Rosebush. The facts point toward his continuing to use RT well after he was aware of its deleterious effects and lack of efficacy. He only stopped his practice devoted to the technique when he rejoined the Air Force. We have not seen the curriculum, we want to know if these past practices are in any way affecting LGBQ cadets. It’s not a witch hunt when your questions are all well-supported by conventional science.

This man is also on the public payroll, and because of that, he is accountable to taxpayers.

I think we’re pretty much done here.

Mike_in_the_Tundra

Innuendo? Your dictionary must have a different definition for innuendo than my dictionary.

I was raised attending an evangelical church. They were cafeteria Christians. They picked and chose what passages from the Bible they believed. Such as homosexuality is bad, just look at the passages they chose to believe. Divorce? That’s quite okay despite the passages where Christ condemned divorce. I don’t understand why Christ’s words were ignored, but Paul’s were held in high esteem. I believed we were Christians, not Paulians.

I am now a Lutheran. They are much more thoughtful about what they condemn and what they accept. The study of the Bible is much more important than blind acceptance. Scholars are needed to read ancient Hebrew and Greek, so we can look back to the time before The King James Bible. The translators of that translation, actually knowingly twisted passages to scare their homosexual king (it didn’t work). Also the scriptoriums before print was available also added to the changes. A careless monk could accidentally change the whole meaning of a passage. Sometimes those accidents weren’t so accidental

FlyButanol

Ahh– there we go. Marginalize with innuendo, eh? And after all, all you need to believe something is ‘sort of’ proof. The truth is that you hate evangelical Christians simply because they believe in the bible, and it contains things that bother you. I suppose you think that if you can marginalize any opposition you can then proceed with your witch burning unimpeded?

I’d say the opposite is true.

It’s clear you’ve condemned Dr. Rosebush. If he were tied to a stake, you’d happily light the fire. Not because you have any evidence that his body of work at the academy is objectionable, but because he associated with people you hate. You will attack him from any angle possible, justified or not, because you hate evangelical Christians. You then project your hate onto us, imagining we hate you. News flash– that same bible we believe in also commands us to love you.

Yes, continue making it up as you go. Now, you’re making up answers to replace mine with– it’s always easier to argue with straw men, isn’t it?

You don’t have to guess at the Academy’s honesty. As I’ve said, Dr. Rosebush has a 4 year body of work at the academy. Apparently it doesn’t support your story so you claim, without any sort of evidence, that the Academy is dishonest.

Where are your torch and pitchfork? You can’t conduct a proper witch hunt without them.

docsterx

Very weak? Of course. Translation: “I had no idea what I was talking about when I posted. I can’t defend it so I’ll attack your response. And you.”

Perhaps you DO understand and just don’t want to see the truth.

My mendacity? No, your continued inability to even conceive that the Air Force may be less than perfectly honest. Are you a professional military sycophant or are you just an amateur trying to turn professional?

Yes, please continue to believe the Academy, since they’ve already been amazingly transparent and truthful. And I’m sure that “Santa” will reward you appropriately since you seem to trust everything about the Air Force. http://www.vance.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123330438 Now, please tell me how the Army Corps of Engineers is out searching for the Easter Bunny’s hole.

The organization Dr. Rosebush worked with stopped doing reparation therapy prior to his employment at the Academy in 2009. The consensus opinion that conversion is ‘wrong’ because homosexuality should not be classified as a disease began to emerge in 2007 when the APA convened a panel on the subject, which issued their opinion in 2008.

Regarding California, I live here. The law prevents conversion therapy for people under 18, meaning parents can’t attempt to ‘fix’ their kids, but adults can (and do) choose to undergo it. Jerry Brown calls it “quackery”. Perhaps it is, but if it is, it wasn’t declared as such by any reliable authority before 2008. That hardly condemns good faith practitioners prior to that. Not that New Jersey or California are relevant to FOF today, which has been in Colorado for more than two decades.

So you think ex post facto should apply to your ‘enemies’. That’s wrong, and not how either our laws or customs work. Nor should one state’s laws,, especially those passed after the fact, apply to the legal conduct of a citizen in another state. In fact, they don’t.

Jerry Brown also thinks children should be able to claim their sex, use corresponding facilities and sports facilities. He is promoting a fantastically expensive rail project that ends in the middle of nowhere, in a state where you can fly from LAX all the way to SFO for around $60. He thinks raising taxes and regulations is a good idea in a state that has already chased a good portion of their businesses out. He declined to allow citizens to keep their health insurance as President Obama requested. Brown also signed a law constituting a ‘digital eraser’ for teens on social media; clearly, his advisors have no idea how internet caching sites work. While we are being nationally that Obamacare will improve healthcare, Brown has signed a bill that allows non-physicians to perform abortions. No word yet on who provides the coat hangars.

Actually, I’ll cite you more than one authority that says “Reparative Therapy” is harmful: The American Psychiatric Association, The Pan-American Health Organization (a branch of the World Health Organization), the American Psychoanalytic Association, and the American Psychological Association. They all characterize Reparative Therapy as being both ineffective and harmful. You might want to look at the Wikipedia entry on reparative/conversion therapy; it is most enlightening: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reparative_therapy

False though out. The Academy has provided the curriculum developed by Dr. Rosebush.

FlyButanol

Please cite that authority and name those states, with links to the laws. Let’s look at those, since your attacks on this man seem to hang on them.

FlyButanol

I didn’t respond to your criticism of my analogy not because I concede, but because it was very weak. You went on about details of medicine; the analogy was not about medicine. Dr. Rosebush is an accomplished curriculum developer, former Air Force officer, and executive. And no, his activities with FOF are not and have never been a secret. Name a few– there are none, unless you make them up on the spot.

It’s not a question of my failure to understand, but of your mendacity. The curriculum is there, and the Academy is quite willing to put it on display. Indeed, they have done so. No, there are no secrets except the true motivation for your unjustified and un-American attacks on this man.

His previous line of employment, which relies on therapeutic techniques that are illegal in two states, and are counter to the standards set by a recognized authoritative and scientific professional organization, was unethical. Questions need to be asked as to why he was hired, what are the contents of his leadership curriculum, and are the discredited techniques he has used incorporated into that curriculum. These are legitimate questions.

If an accountant who had engaged in unethical activity was put in charge of implementing an organizational accounting system of his own design, an investigation is called for. Especially considering that the accounting system is of his design – he is in a unique position to hide his improprieties. Satisfactory job performance reviews be damned – he could have hidden malfeasance.

If the Air Force is so transparent and there’s “nothing to see here”, why are they angrily brushing aside questions? If there truly is nothing to see here, then they shouldn’t be obfuscating.

docsterx

You seem to be misinformed, very misinformed.

“There are no secrets.” Do you SERIOUSLY believe that? Have you read and understood anything from these posts or others on the situation? If you have, you obviously fail to understand, just as your orthopedics analogy was a massive fail.

In a true witch hunt, evidence favoring the “witch” is suppressed or ignored by the mob. The AF hasn’t provided any evidence. Yet several students have made allegations about Rosebush and his involvement, but you choose to ignore them. Did you read Seefried’s statement (above)? Or did you read what the AMPA said? Perhaps you’re trying to do a cover up by insinuation that Rosebush is being railroaded. That won’t fly. Pardon the pun.

FlyButanol

Investigation? What investigation? Dr. Rosebush was a public figure prior to commencing his present 4 year employment. There are no secrets. You are making it up as you go.

FlyButanol

He doesn’t have contact with students, according to the academy, at least not in a professional context. Yes, a witch hunt in every regard.

FlyButanol

Investigate him, or his body of work in his 4 years at the academy? Unless you’re suggesting that his previous employment was unlawful?

docsterx

And honest.

docsterx

You misunderstand the term “quack.”

docsterx

No, not a witch hunt at all. Appropriate questions about his previous experience, contact with students, claiming to treat a disease that isn’t a disease, not conforming to the guidelines of the APA. All of those are things that need to be investigated.

docsterx

“Can an orthopedic surgeon specializing in knees be hired as an orthopedic surgeon specializing in hips?” That depends. Maybe he can in some states, maybe he can’t. He may be qualified as an orthopedist in Alabama but may not be in Colorado. Each state has somewhat different requirements. Also, that begs the question, why would said orthopedist, after specializing in knees for so many years, want to switch to hips? Most people who subspecialize to a degree remain in that subspecialty. His expertise is with the knee. He’s built his reputation on his decades of work with knees, not hips. One of my first questions to him would about that. Why do you feel the need to switch from knees to hips? Have you started having problems with your knee surgery techniques or patients? Is your income declining because of poor results? Having ore patient complaints? Not meeting state requirements to maintain license? Yet, initially, the AF said that they didn’t know what he was asked because they couldn’t find those personnel records. Now they’ve “found” them and they say that everything’s OK. Why am I not reassured?

Sounds like he was a successful AF officer, based solely on statements made by the Air Force. His other background smacks of pseudoscience and charlatanism.

The AF has closed ranks over this. They’ve already lied and have been distributing misinformation. You expect them to become truthful now? They’re going to protect him and thus, protect themselves.

It will be highly doubtful that we’ll get any meaningful answers from either the AF or the AFA as long as the AFA is in charge of the investigation.

Oh, this is more than previous employment, which you seemed to take into account on your last comment post. But his entire therapeutic approach is tied to hist past employment. Now he’s designing and implementing a coach-counseling program. I find a lot wrong with that.

From all we’ve learned, there is every reason to investigate him. You say that by all accounts he has been doing an excellent job. I would like to know whose accounts. I think taxpayers need to know the facts about a government employee. That’s not witch-hunting, that’s making sure things are working right.

FlyButanol

“The obvious” is that he has been at the Academy for 4 years, and developed a curriculum. It is fair to judge that. It is not fair to condemn his previous employment.

No, those “facts” disqualify nothing and no one. He is qualified, by all accounts he is doing an excellent job. You and others are conducting a witch hunt.

You’re overlooking the obvious – he was a counselor who repeatedly engaged in quackery, and not by accident. He has never acknowledged or accepted that the type of so-called therapy he engaged in is both wrong and harmful.

These facts immediately disqualify him from both counseling and designing a counseling system. As I said further down thread, you don’t hire a rocket designer if all of his previous attempts at rocketry have blown up when that person’s peers can build rockets that work.

FlyButanol

Can an orthopedic surgeon specializing in knees be hired as an orthopedic surgeon specializing in hips? Dr. Rosebush is a counselor, and has been writing curriculum for 20 years. He was also a successful Air Force officer. Sounds like it could be a fit. Why not ask to see the curriculum and judge that, rather than stage a witch hunt for the guy who prepared it?

batman dad

I can’t respond to the comment you made on “White House rules out Afghan ‘apology'”, so I’ll do it here. You’re talking about maturity when you put words in my mouth and call me an idiot? You’re the idiot. I don’t think what you said I think at all. I have no idea how you extrapolated that. Are you the type of person that is against food stamps? That’s truly idiotic.

What I meant was no Afghan was part of 9/11. It was Saudis and Yemenis. Not one Afghan.

Of course the US is responsible for record opium production. They are the ones letting it happen. They are the ones who caused worldwide bans of harmless drugs and yet are letting Afghanis sink into addiction because they want to appease warlords. It’s quite disturbing.

SammySeattle

You must be new here. Any of us would do exactly that at Thanksgiving, or any other day of the year.

SammySeattle

He might be Maggie Gallagher or Elaine Donnelly, they have a lot of time on their hands.

Robert Luke Antonek

Actually that is the point! The use or I should say, the mis-use of federal funds to support and promote a doctrine that countermands the policy from the Commander in Chief to dismantle and stop any and all forms of discrimination against gays and lesbians serving in the military. This is why the Inspector General needs to conduct an inquiry as to how Dr. Rosebush was hired given his professional work experience that clearly disqualifies him for the position. Indeed, the gravest concern is how Brig. Gen. Gregory Lengyel, the Commandant of Cadets at the Air Force Academy has acted in direct insubordination of Policy as directed to him from his Civilian Superiors. The very fact that the response from the Academy is that Dr. Rosebush is “”only” in charge of “coaching” them on developing good character and leadership skills” is concrete evidence of insubordination and countermanding orders by Academy Leadership. The previous 20 years of professional experience of Dr. Rosebush in practicing, promoting, and supporting “reparative therapy” directly relates to his willingness to place superstition and religious beliefs before the proof of science and the rule of law. This is not a recipe for “developing good character and leadership” unless the leadership at the Academy has an agenda to coach cadets to prefer religious bigotry over the rule of law. There is no other explanation for this hiring other than insubordination by Brig. Gen. Gregory Lengyel and a coordinated attempt on the part of Academy Senior Officials to undermine policy and law as dictated by Civilian Leadership.

JamesStone

Our tax dollars at work! I’d love to see his definition of “character and leadership!” Let me guess..it probably is “remain in the closet forever like I did.”

TampaZeke

I’ll gladly accept the occasional typo over being a terminally ignorant bigot any day. Typos can easily be corrected. (See? Done!) Mental illness? Not so easy to fix.

TampaZeke

GLADLY! And you be sure to pet a Unicorn for me when you get to “heaven”. LOL

Ninong

Hey, you should have been in Springfield yesterday. You would have loved it. Bishop Paprocki formally ordered Satan (serpent, dragon, etc., etc.) to fly away, begone, get lost, etc., etc… and it did it in Latin while wearing gorgeous purple drag. I wasn’t there, so I don’t know if they pulled out all the stops with the incense and all, but it must have been a sight to behold in this day and age.
For some reason, he found it necessary to hire two armed off-duty police officers to perform guard duty inside the cathedral during his official exorcism ritual.

Ninong

“God did not command “thou shalt not kill”. He commanded “thou shalt not murder”. Stop being stupid, please.”

Dude, please. Were you there? Do you read ancient Hebrew? Do you know how many times the translation of the Commandments, especially that one, have been changed? The original Hebrew verb could mean either kill or murder, depending on the context, and it could also mean simply to break to pieces.

The King James Version says “you shall not kill” and the Catholic version when I was a kid in the 1940’s used to say “thou shalt not kill.” Some Protestants say “you shall not murder” and it’s possible that the Catholics may have switched to “murder” because they have revised their catechism no less than 4 times since I went to school. It used to be called the Baltimore catechism but then in the late 1960’s, following Vatican II, it was revised. I know it was revised again in the 1990’s under Pope John Paul II. Not only that, there were various revisions to the Baltimore catechism over the years.

In any case, the original ancient Hebrew verb could mean either kill or murder, or something less drastic.

Monoceros Forth

Aw, I’m going to have to use that one some day.

Mike_in_the_Tundra

“You claim that in your days at the Air Force Academy 15 years ago that you did not see an anti-gay, anti-woman or anti non-Christian attitude.”

Don’t you wonder how he shaved, if he didn’t look in a mirror?

Mike_in_the_Tundra

Yes!!! This guy was no great shakes when he started this morning, but he clearly deteriorated since then. If he was representative of ex-cadets, I can’t say I was too impressed.

Funny thing. You can cure a troll. Buh bye. And I’m leaving the “fag” comment up, because it only helps show the world, and the Air Force Academy, the kind of visceral hatred that inhabits the world of those who say gays can be cured.

I never said I agreed that you can “cure” a fag. Why would we want to? They should be in prison with all of the other rapists, pedophiles, etc.
Also, i don’t hate fags. I don’t hate anyone. I just hate the sin just like I hate the sin of rape, pedophilia, etc.

He doesn’t like the government collecting his money and giving it away to poor people, yet boasts that taxpayer money paid for his education. And that it made him a better version of himself. He must mean it made him a better hypocrite.

What can I say? If you don’t like people like me taking the piss out of you, stop giving it away.

holoh

You paid for my education with your tax-money, bitch! Why didn’t you do something about that? And now you are paying for my salary and soon my retirement! LOL. Owned!
And I didn’t get brainwashed – I went there because it stood for something and made me a better version of myself. Something it’s not going to do much longer because of people like you. Now it’s going to stand for “why are they trying to define what character is?” as one of your fellow liberal moron posters said. When more and more women are getting sexually assaulted in the Air Force, prisoners are being abused more, etc., because you prevented the Academy from teaching morals and values, remember; that’s on your head.

Listen, you fool, I told you once about the gratuitous insults. I’ve held back. But if you really insist on such insults, insults are what you will get.

First of all, you sanctimonious troll, how do you know that he doesn’t practice what he has formerly preached, so to speak? Note that he only closed down his practice after he had the Air Force position, nimrod! Just because he managed to score a well-paying gig with the Air Force doesn’t mean he’s changed his opinion or that he won’t import these ideas into his program. That’s the whole point of the objection to him being in this position!

You claim that in your days at the Air Force Academy 15 years ago that you did not see an anti-gay, anti-woman or anti non-Christian attitude. how could you even detect that? Every one of your comment posts has reflected your own possession of these traits, Dufus.

Now as far as your post further down, where you urge me to suck your balls. I have to say that I likely speak for other gay guys on this subject, in addition to myself when I say that we really only suck balls that are attached to people we like. I can also confidently state that you do not fit into that category. So whatever thrill you may imagine that you’d get out of an artful ball-sucking, you will not get it from anyone here.

In closing, it is now more apparent to me than ever that you are a sad little person who has few deductive or inductive reasoning powers, below average reading comprehension skills, little knowledge of humanity and even less intellectual curiousity. Therefore, any reasonable attempt at any discussion with you is very much like pissing in the wind. The only thing further that you will see from me is downvoting your posts, which is an activity from which I derive great pleasure with surprisingly little effort.

Good bye, and don’t let the door hit you in the ass on your way out the door. Even if it gives you some perverse pleasure.

If it looks like a holoh, walks like a holoh and talks like a holoh—–It’s a quack.

Whitewitch

You know TampaZeke – I am beginning to really like you. Very well said and you are most elegant.

Bomer

You’re one to talk.

Bomer

You don’t have to explain anything to him. He knows nothing about paganism and it shows. And the only person here that seems to be screaming for attention is him.

Whitewitch

You sir don’t know me at all. You sir have no idea what I care about or don’t care about. And you know me so little, yet you grant yourself the right to judge me. I am not deviant – save that I am deviant from the likes of you – thankfully.

FYI – I do actually care about the cadets – a lot, especially any cadets that are hurt by putting a man that believes, as you clearly do, that any one is deviant because they were made different from you. Either because of their sexual orientation or their gender. You are a cruel and heartless man/woman, of judgement and hatred. And the perfect example of the New Christians – hateful and destructive. It is you that don’t give a rats ass about anyone or anything save yourself and your narrow mind.

Whitewitch

Oh my really….attention whoring. What in the hell does that even mean. I don’t have to worship anything. It is true I see the divine in everything and in everyone…so there is no need to worship. I don’t believe in a god per se, I do honor the seasons and nature. I do love the woods, the wind and the sun. I even see the divine in your although it is rather difficult to believe that you might actually have any light in you….I imagine there is.

Whitewitch

You are beyond hopeless. Read your own words…I can’t even show you because you are blind.

holoh

Very mature.

holoh

You think you are getting under my skin? LOL. Ever heard of trolling, moron? Pissing off liberals is the most fun I can have with my pants on. I like your attitude about “winning” though. As I said in another post, conservatives know this is about self-promotion and ego and not actually about the “principles” (can’t really call them that).

holoh

Is that Forrest Gump or General Nathan Bedford Forrest? And, what does that have to do with trees?

holoh

Yeah, and he doesn’t do it anymore since it was discredited. You mean to tell me that when you were born, you already knew everything that worked and didn’t work and for your entire life you’ve only been doing things that work? IDIOT.

holoh

Please. You don’t give a rats ass about Cadets. This is all about how much attention you can get for your deviant lifestyle.

holoh

Paganism is the purest form of attention whoring there is. Yeah, I’m gonna worship some inanimate objects – WTF is the point in that? Why not just go ahead and worship your mailbox, a car, or a shoe or something?

Monoceros Forth

My son has mental problems–

I’m sorry he has you for a father then.

holoh

Say hi to Satan for me. LOL.

holoh

The_Fixer – Suck my balls.

TampaZeke

God didn’t say EITHER you moron. Even if he/she/it existed (and he/she/it doesn’t), English wasn’t even thought about when the supposed Ten Commandments were purported to have been given to Moses.

LOL, I love it. Ok folks, here it is. The revelation. Three of you have talked above about the good of giving to the poor. I love that! I do that! My friends do that! We just don’t think the government should take our money and do that! We’d like to do it! We’d like to do more of it! But we can’t because the government is taking our money and doing it less effectively than we can! That’s what democrats don’t understand. They think government is the answer. It’s not! We are! The people!

TampaZeke

It tickles my gay heart to know that we are getting so deeply under the skin of idiots like you. The more you comment and complain the clearer it is that we are winning and that you and people like you are desperately lashing out like a cornered animal that knows he is doomed. Your spittle filled rants are like music to our ears. “Boo hoo the homasekshuls are deestroyin Murka!” “Won’t sumbody think of the chuldrun!!?” “Homasekshuls are oppressing X-tians!”

Bwaaaah! LOVE IT!

TampaZeke

You wouldn’t recognize an anti-woman, anti-gay, anti-atheist if he sat on your face because they looked, felt and acted just like you. Couldn’t see the forrest for the trees!

Yes, you’re right. I just assumed that someone who makes these comments would be a rock-headed he. I like equal opportunity for women, but am slow to accept that some women can be just as obnoxious as some men can be.

You clearly have not read Inis_Magrath’s comment or didn’t get the context. This was in reference to the subject of this article, Dr. Mike Rosebush. He has been a practitioner of “reparative therapy”, which has been discredited on the basis that it doesn’t work and it harmful to patients. A “quack” is a doctor who uses unsafe and ineffective practices on his or her patients.

You would have known that if you had read the article thoroughly rather than jump into the comments insulting people and feigning offense at every opportunity.

Whitewitch

No Stev84…I didn’t know that – thanks for educating me. I am just a silly pagan..so I am not always clear about what God does /wink/wink

Furthermore, he accuses everyone else of being hostile. Look at every single one of his posts here. Every other post he has put here has an insult directed at another person. This one doesn’t because he wants to feign offense.

I hardly believe that I’m being stupid when I use the most common Christian interpretation of that commandment. In Judaism, it is interpreted as “Thou shalt not murder.” Various religious sects interpret as “murder” or “kill”.

It would appear, from the accounts I’ve read here and elsewhere, that there is a systemic involvement of Christianity in the armed forces. I don’t think that they are as separate as you claim. It’s well documented, not just by the people commenting here.

I am to take your word over the words of many others who have said differently? Especially when you appear to be a militant Christian? I’m afraid that you are outvoted on this.

Stop being needlessly insulting. Two can play that game, and I assure you that I am much better at it than you are.

Stev84

Jeezus. You really are too stupid to breath.

“Xian” is what Christians called themselves ages ago already.The X is the Latin transliteration of the Greek Chi. Which stands for Christos. It was often combined with Rho to form the first three letters. It’s a symbol that dates back to the fourth century and was found on coins, standards and art in general in the late Roman Empire and the Byzantine Empire.

Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day
Teach a man how to fish and he will eat every day
Teach a man to pray and he will die praying for a fish

And they clearly failed to teach you ethics, morality or humanity there.

Whitewitch

I definitely did not learn anything in bible school remotely a kin to what you are saying. Of course, then I did not learn about generosity and Jesus in most recent incarnation of him where hatred for the poor and disdain for those who are not as fortunate as us is held up at the new Golden Rule.

In fact, I personally did not go to bible school at all…so I can not help you in translating a fable, myth fairy tale. I did hear my mother, more than once say “There but by the grace of God go I” and I have lived by that rule. Where a person can learn to fish – I teach them, where they have no hands to hold the rod I fish for them. I think often of how lucky I am to be whole and able, and how others are less whole and less able. I have also traveled a path of poverty, and am now quite self-sufficient…however no one alone that road who feed me pushed me down or held me back…rather they gave me hope and strength to continue on ….

I believe that is what we do when we feed children who have no food, when we educate those who are ignorant. And I hope that you are being better educated at the Academy than your words imply.

Guess it depends what bible you read eh? That is the best part about being christian you can hate and call it something else. Still hate.

Do you even know what Rosebush does as a person developing programs for the counselors of the Center for Character Development. Please do educate us silly silly non academy persons.

Whitewitch

Dangerous…you think Fixer and I are dangerous…let me help you –

1. Fixer and I have no effect whatsoever on the Cadets
2. Fixer and I have no say about what is or isn’t done there
3. Fixer and I minimally have a tolerance and support for gays.
3. Rosebush does have effect on the Cadets
4. Rosebush believes that gays “need to be cured and are of poor character”
5. Rosebush is in charge of the program which defines how character will be developed at the academy.

Now who is dangerous?

holoh

You offended me when you used “Xtians” instead of “Christians”. You also offended me when you said the word “gay” instead of “homosexual”. You also offended me when you said you were “insane”. My son has mental problems and I do not appreciate you making light of his illness. Why are you being so HOSTILE! Why are we labeling something as “hostile” just because someone put on a survey that they were proselytized to – probably by another cadet and not leadership or someone sanctioned by leadership? That’s what I see in all the statistics quoted in the articles.

holoh

LOL, you don’t even know enough about this to know what the actual names of things in the AF are. “AF high command”, LOL. “Chief of the AF staff” LOL.

holoh

“anti-gay quack”? How many of your family members are “anti-gay”? Parents? Grandparents? I invite you to call them “quacks” and say that you are appalled and don’t want them as family members anymore this Thanksgiving. We aren’t quacks. We are just people with morals.

MileHighJoe

You must be confusing me with someone else. No moron here.

Google it yourself. The Air Force Academy, nowadays, is a hot bed of Evangelical Christianity, which is hostile to women, gays and non-Xtians.

BTW, I do believe you when you say it was not that way 15 years ago — evangelicalism wasn’t as big then and “W” Bush hadn’t institutionalized it in the military.

holoh

Great! Two people whose arguments are based entirely on a lack of factual information completely agree with each other. That’s pretty dangerous, don’t you think?

holoh

God did not command “thou shalt not kill”. He commanded “thou shalt not murder”. Stop being stupid, please.

Also, I’m quite sure the Academy has put a lot of thought into character and morals completely separate from religion. They have a chapel and they have the Center For Character Development. The two entities are completely separate. In my four years at the Academy, not once did I hear anything religious from anyone associated with the Center for Character Development. Stop talking about things that you have no idea about.

holoh

Yeah, we don’t want to develop character in our military leaders at all. Those things that have been going on lately like sexual assault, abusing prisoners, etc., are just fine right? Did you even think before you posted that?

Also, how do you know that you are correct that giving someone food stamps helps them more than letting them go hungry and therefore motivating them to better their lives? Don’t you remember what Christ said about give a man a fish versus teaching him to fish? Oh, that’s right, you wouldn’t have gotten that lesson in pagan bible school. Giving someone something they didn’t earn on a permanent or semi-permanent basis is shameful. We need to encourage people to take care of themselves, not lead them to believe that others will always be there to take care of them.

holoh

You are a moron. I attended the Academy 15 years ago and there was no such attitude from anyone or towards anyone from anyone that I saw there.

holoh

“the chaplains at the Air Force Academy were all Christianists”? That’s odd. How did they get their three jewish chaplains, their muslim chaplain, and two other non-Christian chaplains to be Christianists? Your data is clearly WRONG!

Meanwhile back in Illinois, several fundamentalist Christian groups claimed that the tornados that swept through the state on Sunday were God’s warning to Gov. Pat Quinn not to sign the Marriage Equality Act. Quinn signed it any way today, probably because Quinn knows who the bigger blowhards are.

met00

Google “air force academy christian fundamentalism”
For the Academy this is NOT a bug, it’s a feature.

I, too am distressed by such nebulous terms as “character” and “morals”.

Mostly because I have come to the conclusion that they basically mean “you believe in the same religious theory that I do.”

I find one other thing odd, that there is such an alignment between the military and the religious cults when their god commanded “thou shalt not kill.” Not to mention that Jesus was supposed to have spent all of his earthly years discouraging violence.

Dave

Highly unlikely the AF chief would be involved in local hiring decisions.

gratuitous

Maybe they could trim yet another interview with John McCain down to 20 minutes and put John on?

Stev84

The previous Chief of Staff, Norton Schwartz, seemed to be against the religious extremism (and he is Jewish), but even he was too afraid to move against against the many deeply entrenched nutjob generals in the Pentagon. It was only when he retired that he dared to give out out regulations designed to limit proselytizing at work.

Inis_Magrath

Keep up the pressure and keep asking questions, John. I’m appalled that my government would hire an anti-gay quack to fill ANY position, let alone one that defines a mandatory program for our Air Force Cadets.

Bookbinder

Thanks. Obviously, something is EXTREMEly rotten within the AF high command, because this guy wouldn’t be there if the chief of the AF staff and his subordinates didn’t approve of him and all the other nutjob chaplains.

emjayay

In case you didn’t see Maddow on this, they did answer why this guy was hired. They said the guy that hired him doesn’t work there anymore so they have no idea. Case closed.

Oh, and if you missed it, there was a lot of stuff a year or two ago about how the chaplains at the Air Force Academy were all Chrisitianists and that was the only brand of Christianity allowed there, even though of course it is actually the minority and is also totally against the actual message of Christ. Probably nothing happened with that either.

Dave

The military senior officer corps is extremely right wing. As an ex-USAF member (’72-’77) this does not surprise me.

emjayay

That is how every institution including corporations deals with everything.

chris10858

I agree to some extent but then again, some of the ROTC cadets I remember from college were pretty insane and wouldn’t interact that much with non-ROTC people… cause you know, we weren’t worthy for them to grace their presence with us. LOL

MileHighJoe

This makes me insane. The Academy has a long & shameful history of being very hostile to women, gays and non-Xtians. I wish we could discover how something this atrocious happened. Would filing a request under the freedom of information act help to expose some light on the process?

Stev84

It’s only damage control. Nobody there has any intention to do anything. Just publish weak denials until the attention goes away.

Whitewitch

Excellent letter – very well written – thank you for sharing the link.

Whitewitch

What is exactly is “developing character” and “character” based on who’s standards, Republicans, Christians…military founders? I am confused why they need someone to develop such a program did they not have a process for evaluating those who attend to insure they had “character”.

I worry when even I hear people talking about nebulous terms such as character. As a Pagan many believe I have not morals – and yet I find I often have more morals than those who proclaim to be christians (for example – I would never let a person go hungry – even if it meant the country needed to step up to the plate and provide food stamps for the poor – yet many christians think they are helping the poor by not feeding them).

So perhaps the whole program needs to be reconsidered and disbanded, so too Mr. Rosebush.

EDITED: Kind of cool that they called you – means someone was moved by your article.

Stev84

It’s not just the AFA. West Point has a heavy dose of fundamentalism and coercion too.

Randy Riddle

carbon copy the Commander in Chief and ask why this is being tolerated.

UncleBucky

So, if the USAF approves of the belittlement and marginalization of a minority, or of several minorities, they do not defend the US Constitution and should be disbanded or reformed. The people at the top need to be removed.

maria

We’d all be better off if the Christian Right would stick to playing Call to Duty on their Xbox and not coopt one of our military academies.

Monoceros Forth

I suppose it’s fitting in a way. Right-wing Christianity in the U.S. is full of martial posturing, with talk of being “warriors” wearing the “armor” of their faith in Jesus. It only makes sense that they’d jump at the opportunity to coopt an explicitly military organization and make themselves real warriors and not merely fantasy ones.

This is probably the result of the very cozy relationship the AFA has with FoTF. They are basically next door to each other.

Stev84

ROTC is generally less dangerous because the students aren’t isolated from reality for a whole four years. They go to a normal college and interact with other people who are different from them. So they aren’t being brainwashed 24/7.

Mike_in_the_Tundra

That’s freaky. We both had the same idea about the same time.

Mike_in_the_Tundra

We should all give John an attaboy for Rachel Maddow’s shout out last night. Now if MSNBC would just have him on sometime, that would be nice.

HereinDC

Congrats! I read your article yesterday and then for Maddow to acknowledge you as the first to report it.

caphillprof

How can we take this information and turn it into action?

Indigo

In other words, heterosexual males have needy, co-dependent personalities. What a shame.

StraightGrandmother

GREAT WORK John Aravosis, REALLY Great Work.
You are a very valuable and important individual in the Fight for Equal Rights for Sexual Minorities.

chrislib

Theofascist sickos have run the place for years, and have allowed upperclass males to rape underclass females at will…and they’re not even active duty yet. I can’t help but wonder when this mentality will spread to college and high school ROTC.

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